Daymare
by SlytherinOwl
Summary: Antonin is experiencing a daymare. *One-Shot!*


Thank you for betaing this, starrnobella!

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I have borrowed Antonin as well as Alecto Carrow's obsession with poor Antonin from Canimal (author of _´The Silver Mage's Captive'_ and _'The Dark Mage's Captive'_ and several other wonderful stories, seriously, go and check them out if you haven't done so yet!). Similarities are thus intentional and this story is published with consent of Canimal.

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A tall, dark haired wizard closed his front door with an audible bang. The delivery of his dinner seemed to have taken ages, he felt starved and then the delivery book had the cheek to sound annoyed with _him_. Antonin scowled and made his way from the front door to the living room, anxious to set the food down and finally eat something.

He rubbed his forehead, musing that he really should learn cooking at some point. The delivery boys were driving him up the walls on a regular basis, and if he were seen in the Leaky Cauldron – or any other wizarding establishment – he surely would end up in Saint Mungo's. He was not exactly anyone's favourite wizard anymore. The name Antonin Dolohov still instilled panic.

Antonin sighed as he sat down on his old sofa. It had already been in the flat when he rented it, like most of his furniture, and looked as though it was twice his age. His gaze wandered to the desk where he spotted an item lying there that definitely hadn't been there just minutes before.

It was a black ugly crown, lying as though he had placed it there. Antonin leaned in to take a closer look and noticed fine, almost needle-like thorns adorning every inch of the crown. A sticky liquid of unknown origin seemed to cover large parts of it as well. Antonin reached for his wand, which was not in his pocket – the damned thing was reeking of dark magic.

He knew about dark magic, not just because he had been a Death Eater for most of his life, but before his several stints in Azkaban, he had been a curse breaker. It had been his job to be able to recognise all kinds of cursed items.

Antonin took a shaky breath as he leaned back, his eyes carefully scanning the living room. Everything seemed untouched. No book misplaced, no footprints on his carpet, and nothing else out of place except the cursed crown.

Where had it come from? How did someone place it right here, in the middle of his flat, without him noticing? No one could have come through the front door. He had been standing there, exchanging pounds for Chinese food with names he couldn't pronounce. There was no balcony attached to the flat either. Of course, a wizard or a witch could employ different means to cause the crown to appear in his flat, but he was well protected against those. Well... at least he had thought so. There was no fireplace in his flat, so he had placed an anti-apparition ward as well as several complicated wards just to make sure that even the most powerful wizards and witches could not breach the premises without him noticing.

And somehow someone had been able to breach his wards, without his knowledge.. Placed a curse on a crown and put it in his flat, right under his fucking nose.

Why a crown? And why was it cursed? He furrowed his brow at the thought.

It was not as though many people didn't want to see him dead - oh, they did - but most used a more direct approach. Since he had been pardoned because it had been proven he was under the imperius curse, he didn't have a choice about leaving his flat. He had been cursed in Diagon Alley _forty-two_ times in the span of just a month, not that the general public seemed to care. He was forced to stop leaving the house after he was almost arrested by some overly eager Aurors when he decided not just defend himself, but throw a hex onto one of his attackers. The charges were eventually dropped. No one could deny it had happened in self-defence, but again no one cared. He was still the big bad Death Eater that he had been in both of the Wizarding Wars. He couldn't blame them, he supposed. He had committed atrocious acts after all.

Antonin moved closer to the crown when suddenly the lights flickered. He stopped in his tracks immediately, his gaze jumping from the large living room window to his front door to the old muggle light switch, before landing back on the desk, where he noticed that the crown had disappeared.

Or so he thought briefly.

He felt something touch his head and jumped away looking up where he noticed that the crown had been hovering just where his head had been seconds ago.

He looked down at his hands to see if he was showing symptoms of something being off , but his hands showed nothing.

The crown started gliding towards him.. Antonin quickly rushed over to his bedroom door and slammed it shut before the crown could follow him. He began searching for his wand, normally it was always with him, but – where was it now?

The lights in his bedroom began flickering . Once, twice, and then suddenly the room stayed dark.

Antonin cursed under his breath, he had no idea what was going on. Was this an elaborate prank? A weird assassination attempt?

Suddenly nausea hit him and he leaned back against his bedroom door panting. What was happening? Everything felt strange. He couldn't feel his arms anymore. They seemed numb. The crown's curse must already be working against his body, he assumed.

Then he heard a feminine, shrill voice call out his name from the living room.

"Antonin?"

Carrow. How had she found him? Antonin's thoughts were racing now, nothing seemed to make sense anymore. Had she placed the crown there? But she was so painfully stupid! But... if she was as stupid as he assumed, how did she manage to enter his flat?!

He had thought her dead! Maybe she was back as a ghost, haunting him like she had done when she was alive?

Slowly he backed away from the door when he felt something wrap itself around his ankles. When he looked down, he saw something snatch his wrists as well and wrap itself around him slowly.

A devil's snare. In his bedroom. Antonin was sure he was going to have a fit, this didn't make any sense!

Again from the other side of the door he could hear Alecto Carrow's shrill voice call to him.

"Antonin, where are you?"

Then he heard nails scraping the wooden door of his bedroom. He struggled against the Devil's Snare, feeling overwhelmed with what was happening to him. When the plant wrapped itself around his neck, he began to panic in earnest.

He was a man of logic, he could deal with a lot of problems - but none of these made sense!

He breathed heavily - or at least tried to - and tried to shout " _Lumos Solem_!" in an authoritative voice, but he already lacked the oxygen needed to produce the sounds.

Antonin tried repeatedly, but he had no ability to make sound and no wand in hand.

The last thing he heard before he blacked out was Alecto's voice calling, "Antonin!" and a cackling sound that was most likely her laughter.

Suddenly, he woke up. Cold stones were digging into his back and his head felt uncomfortable where he had rested it.

The whooshing of the North Sea did little to calm his mind. His eyes darted around, his hands grabbing for his wand, but there was nothing. Just raw flesh where his holster used to be. He scratched at it, tore the flesh open, it had to be somewhere!

His breathing was fast and flat, he crawled across the stone floor - where was his wand? Blood slowly dripped from his arm, leaving a bloody path in his wake. When he reached the stone wall opposite the one where he had rested, he curled his hands into his hair, pulling it, his face contorted in agony. He couldn't make sense of this, what was happening? He heard voices and screams, but he was unaware that he was the one screaming incoherent sentences.

Unaware that he had never left Azkaban.


End file.
